Academies of Loudoun RoboLoCo Advances to District Championship

Leesburg, VA, March 27, 2023 – The Academies of Loudoun (ACL) FIRST® Robotics Competition Team (RoboLoCo) won the 2023 FIRST® Impact Award at the FIRST® Chesapeake District Bethesda MD Event on March 12, 2023. The FIRST Impact Award (formerly the Chairman's Award) is the most prestigious award at FIRST, it honors the team that best represents a model for other teams to emulate and best embodies the mission of FIRST. It was created to keep the central focus of FIRST Robotics Competition on the ultimate goal of transforming the culture in ways that will inspire greater levels of respect and honor for science and technology, as well as encouraging more of today’s youth to become science and technology leaders.

ACL RoboLoCo has had continued success at the district level winning the 2023 Engineering Inspiration Award at the FIRST® Chesapeake District Timonium MD Event on March 26, 2023. The Engineering Inspiration Award celebrates outstanding success in advancing respect and appreciation for engineering within a team’s school or organization and community. ACL RoboLoCo advances to compete in the FIRST® Chesapeake District Championship at Eagle Bank Arena on April 6th-8th.

To ACL RoboLoCo members, Nithya Vinodh and Aakash Maskeri, have earned individual distinction as FIRST Dean’s List Semi-finalist. FIRST Dean’s List Semi-finalist are great examples of current student leaders who have led their teams and communities to increased awareness for FIRST and its mission while achieving personal technical expertise and accomplishment. Nithya will go on to compete for a FIRST Dean’s List Finalist slot at the district championship.

The Academies of Loudoun “RoboLoCo” team (team 5338) is a FIRST® Robotics Competition (FRC) team competing in the Chesapeake District. ACL RoboLoCo is one of several thousand FRC teams across the globe. FRC is the highest level of FIRST® competitions, above FLL (4th - 8th grade) and FTC (7th - 12th grade). FIRST®, a nonprofit organization, releases a new game every year, and teams have nine weeks to build a robot to compete with, fitting with the organization’s mission to inspire young people to be leaders in the fields of Science and Technology, by engaging them in exciting student-based programs that involve problem solving, creativity, and analytical reasoning. For more information about FIRST® and FRC, refer to https://www.firstinspires.org/.